1 Gibbon, i. 28, thus sketches their " age of iron," from Tiberius to Domitian; Vespasian and his son Titus being alone excepted. " Their unparalleled vices, and the splendid theatre on which they were acted, have saved them from oblivion. The dark unrelenting Tiberius, the furious Caligula, the feeble Claudius, the profligate and cruel Nero, the beastly Vitellius, and the timid inhuman Domitian, are condemned to everlasting infamy."
2 See my brief historic picture of the state of the empire at the time of St. John's seeing the Apocalypse, given at p. 64 supra; and especially the extract in the Note 7 from Tacitus.
3 I must beg the reader very carefully and distinctly to realize to himself this state of things in the Roman world under Domitian, at the outset of our inquiry into the prophecy of what was to follow afterwards.
4 I must beg the reader most distinctly to mark at the outset the indication of the white colour of the horse a colour significative of prosperity and joy, in direct contrast to the black colour of the horse in the 3rd Seal, the sign of distress and mourning; as well as the intimations of military triumphs.
The former, which continued through the whole period of the Seal, implied continued national happiness: the " went forth conquering, and that he should conquer," does not imply uninterrupted war and conquests: (if so how would the white during any long period be realized ?) but only and just what I have above stated. I observe this, because it has been inconsiderately objected by certain critics of the Horae that the prophecy prefigured an uninterrupted course of war and victory.
5 It seems that those of Commodus' medals that bear the titles Imp. iv, Imp. v, Imp. vi, were struck in the years 180, 182. 183, respectively: also, from history, that these were the only ones in his reign struck in reference to Germanic successes ; and that the last preceded Commodus' discovery of Lucilla's conspiracy, in 183, which caused the first great deterioration of his government.
6i. i, 128.
7It is in regard of this contrast that I the rather wish these words to be marked; as furnishing from Gibbon an unintended illustration, not only of the white of the first seal, but of the red of the second.
8 i. 118. Partially this one good distinctive, as Gibbon states, applied also to the darker period antecedent, from Augustus' establishment in the empire to Nerva's but only quite partially. For there occurred in it the great exception of the mighty civil wars of Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian; and also the conspiracies against and murders of, Caligula,Nero, and Domitian.
9lb. 8-10, 14.
10b. 13.
11lb. 126.--As regards the testimony of original historians to the same effect shall refer to several more presently, when speaking of the causal agents of this national happiness of the Romans during the period spoken of. But I must at once introduce that of the greatest of Roman historians, Tacitus: who having lived held office in " the iron age " preceding, lived also to enjoy and to record the go] age that followed ; his death not occurring (so Lipsius in Vit. Tac. supposes though the exact date is not known,) till the reign of Hadrian. In his life of A cola, ii. 1, he thus writes. " Nunc demum redit animus: et quanquam. pr statim beatissimi seculi ortu, Nerva, Caesar res etiam dissociabiles miscuerit, pri patum ac libectatem. augeatque quotidie felicitaten imperii Nerva Trajan us, &c, And so too another cotemporary historian, Suetonius, whom I shall have to refer a little later, Vit. Domit. c. 23. See my Note 4, p. 134 infra
12 How honourable will well appear from Gibbon's statement, i. 13 The fiercest barbarians frequently submitted their differences to the arbitration of the Emperor: [sc. Hadrian or Antoninus Pius:] and we are informed by a cotemporary historian (Appian), that he had seen ambassadors who were refused the honour which came to solicit, of being admitted into the rank of subjects."--Compare the younger Victor on Antoninus Pius; c. 3.
There is a common class of medals of these emperors, which well illustrate the respect paid them by the barbarians of the frontier. Barbarian kings are represented as receiving a tiara or diadem from them, with the legends, " Rex Parthis datus," " Rex Quadis datus," &c. See Spanheim, p. 832. (Ed. 1671.)
13I beg to refer to my full historical sketch of these wan given in my Vindiciae Horae pp. 95--105.-M. Aurelius' decisive triumph in the Marcomannic war is noticed by Gibbon i. 381, and Schlegel in his Philosophy of History, ii. 36. The latter thus states the permanent effectiveness of Aurelius' triumphs over them. "
M.Aurelius, by his successful resistance of the Alemannic invasion, was the means of deterring the barbarians for a long time from similar enterprises." In fact for some fifty or sixty years.--On the triumphant nature of the peace concluded with the Marcomanni, immediately after M.Aurelius' death, see Dion Cass. 1xxii. 2, 3; also my Vindicise, p. 103.
14 On the top of this column Trajan's ashes were placed in a golden urn; a triumph having been previously celebrated to his image, in place of himself. A thing unparalleled!
15Gibb. i. 127.
16Ibid. By " the four emperors " Gibbon means those after Nerva: Nerva himself who, during his short sixteen months' reign, having failed partially in this one point of good government.
17lb.-So the ancient historians of the period. Thus both Suetanius and Tacitus represent the earlier emperors of the series, Nerva Trajan, as introducers of a golden age: (see my Notes pp. 123, 134:) and similarly, notwithstanding the dangerous wars, and plague too, that occurred under the reign of Aurelius, Dion Cassius (LXXI. 36) represents his reign as also of the golden age. So agin, Eutropius, viii. 1, speaking of Nerva's accession and his successors; " Respublica, ad prosperrimum statum rediit, bonis principibus ingenti felicitate commissa -. " and of Aurelius; " Fortunatam Rempublicam. et virtute et mansuetudine reddidit." And so too Victor. -Even the Christian writer Lactantius passes his eulogium on these five Princes. In his De Mort. Persec. c. 3. ad fin. he says ; " Secutis temporibus (sc. post Domitianum) multi boni principes Romani Imperii clavurn regimenque tenuerunt."
18 Pliny notes the ancient custom, in his account of Trajan's return to Rome from his foreign victories; Panegyr. xxii. " Priores in vehi et importari solebant, non dico quadrijugo curru et albentibus equis, &c." So Plutarch of Camillus' triumph. So, again, as Suetonius relates, Domitian rode on a white horse in his father Vespasian's Jewish triumph. Domit. 2.-Lactantius, M. P. 16, also alludes to the old custom.
19 Gibb. i. 102, Note 10 On the exceptions, see Note 3 p. 127.
20 Cuninghame's Apocalypse, p. 3 (Ed. 4.); and Answer to Faber, p. 156, Note.
21 Only in his case it was: a crown not of laurel, but of thorns.
22 Illustrations abound both historical and medallic.-Eckhel on the cultus capitis of the Augugfi, Vol. viii. p. 360, states that in the interval between Augustus and Domitian the only three persons that appear to have worn the imperial crown, besides the reigning emperors, were Claudius Drusus, L.Vitellius, and Domitian himself, previous to his accession. From after Domitian's accession however he says that it was an absolute distinctive. " Deinceps in legem abivisse ut nemo nisi Augustus laurea praecingeretur, numi luculenter docent."
Herodian (viii. 6).illustrates the continuance of the imperatorial symbol of a crown, by an example of the date A. D. 239. When the Aquileians would intimate to their besiegers the senatorial emperors acknowledged by them, they did so by exhibiting from the walls their portraits crowned with laurel. On the other hand, as before observed in my Note p. 124, Spanheim notices, as common Roman medals of the era of Trajan and the Antonines, coins in which barbarian kings are represented as receiving a tiara or diadem from the Roman emperor.
23So Gibbon, Vol. ii. p. 165.-See my Essay on this subject in the Appendix at the end of Vol. iii.
24 See my explanation of Apoc. xvii. 41, in Part iv. Ch. iv.
25 In the Plate opposite, the specimens of laureated and diademed emperors given,--the one of Nerva. near the end of the first century, the other of Valentinian of the fourth,--are copied from Pitiscus Edition of Victor.
26 Hence the laureated heads of the Constantinian emperors, for example, often seen on the imperial medals of that period. But the proper badge of royalty was at that time understood to be the diadem. Thus when Constantine's corpse lay in state, we read in Eusebius that it was arrayed in purple and with the diadem, as the royal insignia.
27In the Apocalypse the seven-headed dragon with diadems, Apoc. xii. 3, seems used in reference to the opening of the fourth century; the ten-horned diademed Beast, Apoc. xiii. 1, with reference-to the sixth.
28 So Rasche of one of the later emperor Caracalla's coins, which he describes ii. 716 1 ; " Eques Imperstor, dextram elevans, a, Victorii volitante coronatur: ante pedes equi captivus:" &c.
29 Given by Gessner. Vol. li. Tab. xli: also by Ackerman, in his work on Roman medals, i. 103. The horseman in it is speeding forth between trophies on a triumphal arch. It is described too by Valliant (Ed. 3) p. 58, and Eckhel vi. 240.
30 It is given by Gessner ii. xlii ; by Montfaucon ; and by Bettori, in his Veteres Arcus Augustorum; (Rome, 1824:) and is supposed, as he intimates, to be the same with that still standing, though dismantled of its statuary, near the gate of St. Sebastian.
The words, " De Germania," appear inscribed on the peristyle of the arc; and on the coin, round the head of Cl. Drusus, there is the inscription, " Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus Imper." Compare Vaillant ibid. and Eckhel vi. 178. I should observe that in the plate opposite, the Victory has been added by me, by way of illustration, from another triumphal arch, adjoining this in Montfaucon's Plate, vol. iv. p. 108. (Ed. London 1724.)
31 p. 113 supra,
32 See Gessner, Vaillant, Eckhel, &c. I have given notices of some of these coins in my Vindiciae, pp.86,94,98. Splendid medals exist of Trajan crowned triumphing
33 The Univ. Hist. viii. 219 (on Crete), while allowing Bochart's correctness in stating that some of the Philistines mingled with the Phoenicians that attended Cadmus into Crete and Greece, yet observes, not without good historic authority, that a, Pelasgian colony had arrived in Crete before him.-But it was the Phoenician Crethim that gave their name to the island.
34 So I Sam. xxx. 14, Ezek. xxv. 16, Zeph. ii. 5.
35 See 2 Sam. viii. 18, xv. IS, zx. 23, 1 Kings i. 38, t Chron. xviii. 17 : in an of which places the word, though in our translation rendered Cherethites, is in the original Crethim; and this word by the Chaldee Paraphrast interpreted archers. In the above I have nearly copied the observations of Macknight, in his Preface to the Epistle to Titus.
36 The reader will probably be aware that Sir Issac Newton's Chronology dates the early settlement of Greece some 300 or 400 years later than the more received Chronology of Usher and Mayfair.
40 In his Life of Pyrrhus.
41 Crete-was made a Roman Province by Q. Metellus, hence surnamed Creticus", B. C. 66.-To those of my readers who have visited Rome, the name of this Metellus Creticus will have been made familiar by the majestic sepulchral tower raised to his daughter Ciecilia Metella, still standing two miles outside of the gate of S. Sebastian; and the deeply touching lines upon it in Childe Harold.
43 Eckhel, ii. 309, after describing a medal of Cydonia, in Crete, in the reverse of which a man is represented as manufacturing a bow before a fire, says " In this there seems to me an allusion to the celebrated skill of the Cretans in preparing bows: " and he quotes Claudian's lines, Quis labor bumanus tantum ratione sagaoci Proficit? excipiunt trucibus Gortynia capris Cornua: subjectis eadem lentescere cogunt Ignibus ; intendunt taurino viscere nervos."
44 See Adams, or any other book of Roman Antiquities, on the Jus maginum.
45 The Julian line of emperors was extended by successive adoptions down to Claudius, of the Claudian gens, who adopted Nero. Galba was of the Sulpician gens-Suetonius on Galba. c. 3, says: "
46 So Suetonius Vit. Othon. i ; " Majores Othonis orti sunt oppido Ferentino, familla vetere et honorata atque ex principibus Etruriae."-Respecting Vitellius the same historian says that it was a disputed point whether he was of noble or of base ancestry ; but it was Italian.
47It should be clearly understood that in the expression, " Romse out per Italiam. orti," Victor refers not to the birthplace of the individuals spoken of, but to their ancestral origin. As regards birthplace, two out of the twelve Caesers that preceded Nerva were born out of Italy: viz. Clautiius at Lyons, as Suetonius tells us; and C. Caligula in the camp near Treves. At least such is Victoes own view of Caligula's birthplace, (" natus in exercitu,") as well as that of Tacitus. Annal. i. 41.
48 After Hadrian's accession two reports prevailed, as we learn from Dion Cassius, Spartian, and other historians, about this emperor's adoption by Trajan : one that Trajan really adopted him very shortly before his death; the other that the adoption was falsely asserted by Trajan's wife Plotina, and forged letters of adoption, as by Trajan's order, sent by her to the Senate. In my Vindiciae, pp. 111-113, I have fully discussed the existing historical evidence on the question, said given reasons for my own decided leaning to the former. One thing however is certain; viz. that both the Roman Senate and people recognized the adoption as valid, and in consequence accepted Hadrian as emperor. The other three adoptions were public and notorious.
49 In the following inscription, found on an ancient stone in Milan, and given by Montfaucon in his Supplement, Antiquities of Italy, p. IS, the names of all the five emperors may be considered as virtually thus associated together.
For L. Aurelius Verus was the adoptive brother of M. Aurelius.
Imperatori Caesari
L. Aurelio Vero Aug.
Armeniaco Medico Parthico
Max. Trib. Pop. vii
Imp. iiii. Cos. iii. P. P.
Divi Antonini Pil
Divi Hadriani Nepoti
Divi Trajani Parthici Pronepoti
Divi Nerva Abnepoti
Dec. Dec.
i. e. To the Emperor L. Aurelius, &c, son to the divine Antonine, grandam to the divine Hadrian, great grandam to the divine Trajan, great great grandson to the divine Nerva." Decreto Decurionum-Two similar inscriptions with the nepote, pronepote, and abnepole, attached to M. Antoninus, will be found in Canina's Foro Kornano, pp. 192, 193.
50 Alike in histories, medals, and marbles, we find Trajan called Nerva Trajan,Hadrian called Trajan Hadrian, Antoninus Pius called Elius Hadrian Antoninus, and M. Aurelius called M. Aurelius Antoninus. So Tacitus Agric. 3 ; Capitolinus Vit. Anton. Phil. 1, 5, 7; Valliant, pp. 126, 141,A65, 171, 176, &c. See the citation in my Vindiciae, p. 115.
51 "The effect of adoption was to create the legal relation of father and son, just as if the adopted son were born of the blood of the adoptive father in lawful marriage. The adopted child was entitled to the name and sacra privata of the adopting parent." Smith's Dict. of 'Antiquities in voc. Adoption.-Compare e. g. the words of Galba, to Piso, when adopting him, given in Tacitus, Hist. i. 15.
52 He says, lxviii.* 4, that Trajan was the first emperor that was altogether foreign ; being of purely Spanish parentage. always settled in Spain, and himself actually born out of Italy: also how Nerva did not overlook his merits, because he was thus Spanish, and neither an Italian nor an Italiot, i. e. not Italian, as all the former emperors except Nerva: nor Italiot, as Nerva himself. The allusion is plain. Compare Aurelius Victor before quoted.
53 The passage from Victor Aurelius quoted p. 135 Note I supra, goes on, " Quid enim Nerva Cretensi prudentius? "
54 So, for example, Tillemont, ad ann. 96: " Nerva. etoit originaire de Crete par sea ancetres, mais ne a Narni dans I'Ombrie. C'e3t le premier empereur qui ne fut pas Romain ou Italien d'origine." And so too, after him, Crevier. Again the Ancient Univ. Hist. Vol. xv. p. 104:
" Nerva was a native of 'Narni in Umbria; but his family came originally from the island of Crete: so that he was neither by birth a Roman, nor descended from an Italian family." And the Encyclopedia Metropolitana, Art. Nerva Augustus: " The Flavian family left the throne of Augustus to the descendant of a Cretan colonist." On an interesting medallic illustration and corroboration of this fact, see my Appendix to this Volume, No. 2.
55 Nerva's great grandfather would seem to have been the first of his ancestry that was dignified by Roman honors; he having been consul U. C. 718, some 35 years before the Christian sera. See Tillemont ibid. But this settlement of the family in Italy would not prevent the memorial being kept up of its early Cretan origin. Com. pare the parallel case of the Emperor Hadrian. He had in like manner a great grandfather, ennobled, first of the family, as senator at Rome. Yet in a memoir of himself he tells of his ancestral origin as Spanish. See Spartan's Hadrian, c. 1.
56 St John, as Irenaeus tells us "lived in the time of Trajan; " and so was himself a living witness of the commencing fulfillment of the Apocalyptic prophecy. In like manner, the similarly beloved and favoured Daniel lived to see the destruction of Babylon, and the supremacy and decree of Cyrus; and in them the commencing fulfillment of the prophecies of the future revealed to him.